Press Release

Millward Brown Digital and Snapchat Partner to Provide Measurement of Platform’s First Advertising

Millward Brown Digital, the world’s leading digital experts in helping clients grow great brands, today announced that it has partnered with Snapchat to provide the first ever analysis of advertising on the Snapchat platform.

Millward Brown Digital measured the first six advertising campaigns to appear on Snapchat to help marketers assess the effectiveness of advertising on the Snapchat platform.

Snapchat has released two distinct advertising formats to date, with Millward Brown Digital’s research, evaluating reception from users and marketers. Snapchat’s first ad format, Brand Story, was launched in October 2014. Snapchat users choose to watch each Brand Story comprised of up to 20 seconds of an advertisers’ photo and video content and delivered alongside Snapchat’s organic Story product. Since November, advertisers have also begun to sponsor Snapchat Our Stories, collections of user-submitted photos and video that form a multi-perspective window into geo-centric events. With the inclusion of “brought to you by” messaging and advertiser-contributed pieces of 5 to 10-second photo and video content woven throughout, advertisers are engaging with consumers via a contextual marketing experience.

Initial advertisements using the Brand Story format include campaigns for time-sensitive events such as opening weekends for NBC Universal’s films “Ouija” and “Dumb and Dumber To,” and the latest release of the Electronic Art’s “Dragon Age” video game series. Our Story sponsorships to date have included Samsung interwoven into the American Music Awards, Macy’s featured in their annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Black Friday marketing from Amazon and Hollister.

Millward Brown Digital’s analysis has shown that the campaigns were received positively by Snapchat users: 60% of ‘Our Stories’ and 44% of ‘Brand Stories’ viewers enjoyed the ads. These levels of receptivity are more than 3x the norm; according to Millward Brown’s 2014 AdReaction study, only 17% of US consumers find ads on their smartphone device very or somewhat favorable.

In addition to the positive user reception, the research found that Snapchat’s first six advertising campaigns had a significant positive impact on key brand metrics including ad awareness and brand favorability. Across Snapchat’s two ad formats, on average advertisers saw a 16 point lift in ad awareness, which ranked in the top quarter of similar mobile campaigns according to Millward Brown Digital’s mobile MarketNorms, a database consisting of more than 550 mobile marketing campaigns.

Further, research linking ad exposure to offline activity indicated that viewers of the Dragon Age video game Brand Story were 7% more likely to buy the game, exhibiting purchase intent in the top quarter of similar mobile campaigns. Millward Brown Digital also measured the impact of NBCUniversal’s Ouija and Dumb and Dumber To Brand Stories on actual movie attendance during the films’ opening weekend, finding that the campaigns drove a 13% increase in turnout amongst those exposed.

“Snapchat’s platform was a key component of our overall marketing for these films,” says Doug Neil, EVP, Digital Marketing of NBCUniversal. “As a new platform, we needed to understand its power in terms of driving both awareness and action. The partnership between Millward Brown Digital and Snapchat provides us with critical insights into how we can make our mobile video campaigns more impactful for consumers.”

Speaking on their experience advertising in the Macy’s Parade Our Story, Jennifer Kasper, group vice president of digital media and multicultural marketing for Macy’s shared that “Macy's is excited to be among Snapchat’s first advertisers. These full-screen, mobile-only ad experiences create a fresh, new format and provide us access to the undivided attention of Snapchatters. In early efforts, our fun and memorable content experiences have driven strong engagement.”

”Marketers want to know that they are pairing engaging, relevant content with the right audience, and driving real results from their advertising spend,” said Stephen DiMarco, President of Millward Brown Digital. “We are delighted to be partnering with Snapchat to quantify the impact of advertising on its platform and help marketers gain value from their marketing investments.”

The research was conducted among a behaviorally representative group of Snapchat users who were surveyed via an online panel before and after the ‘Brand story’ and ‘Our story’ campaigns launched. In addition, a new research cell was added following the opening weekend of the films.